NEVER INTERRUPT YOUR ENEMY WHEN HE IS MAKING A MISTAKE

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by Colin Liddell

The Labour Party is not interested in Tony Blair – its disgraced ex-leader, who is widely regarded as a de facto war criminal running around free despite his part in the NeoCon Wars of the early 21st century – but Tony Blair is intensely interested in the Labour Party. In fact, the lying "humanitarian" war-monger and failed Middle-Eastern peace envoy (his last job) just won't shut the fuck up (even when he's not being paid enormous fees).

Here he is in just one of several Labour-loathing dailies, delivering a broadside to his old party as it struggles to find a new leader from a very limited pool of talent to fill the rather small gap left by the departure of Ed Miliband:

Labour faces 20 years out of power if it moves further towards the "leftist platform" of the 1980s, Tony Blair warned as he mounted a bitter attack on the hard-left leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Blair said that those who claimed that their heart was with Mr Corbyn should "get a transplant" as he dismissed the lifelong socialist as the "Tory preference" for the leadership contest.

PODCAST 29: CAMERON'S SECOND COMING

A week ago, David Cameron's stint as Prime Minister seemed all but over. Labour and the Conservatives were neck-and-neck in the opinion polls, and there were a host of smaller, left-leaning parties getting ready to do a deal with the Labour Party, a deal that would have made Ed Miliband Prime Minister. But then a sudden late swing confounded all the pollsters and put the ex-Eton public schoolboy back in for a second term. 

Andy and Colin discuss what happened to cause the astounding upset, as well as the ins-and-outs of Cameron's "Second Coming," which will also include an in-out referendum on EU membership.

LESSONS FROM THE UK ELECTIONS

by Colin Liddell

The UK elections have come and gone, and the story is now quickly fading into the twilight. So, what happened? What did we actually learn?

PODCAST 28: HANGING THE PARLIAMENT

Unfortunately, a "hung parliament" doesn't mean quite what you would want it to mean, merely being a British expression for a parliament in which no political party has a majority. With the UK general election just round the corner, Andy and Colin discuss what is sure to be one of the most interesting elections in British political history, with the only certainty being uncertainty.

THE MILIBAND MASQUERADE?

Milibang!

by Colin Liddell

Democratic politics always has had an ugly side, both in the types of personalities it attracts and the devious behaviour it encourages. The main reason for this is that it allows the broad masses to vote, lowering the audience IQ to a level that incentivizes the low-grade deceptions of unscrupulous politicians.

Ugly as it is, it certainly didn’t get any more aesthetically pleasing when Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour Party in 2010. With his robotic style and rubbery face, he evokes Mr. Bean possessed by the last of the Body Snatchers, or a piece of “Wallace and Gromit” claymation gone wrong.

For the present general election campaign, which will end on May 7th, a long, hard effort has gone into making “Ed” seem warm and personable – he was actually fitted out with a (rather ugly) wife shortly after becoming leader and was also designated as the father of her two children, although they clearly resemble their mother much more than their supposed father.

In an attempt to 'humanize' this unlikely leadership material he was also carefully coached on body language, facial gestures, voice, and positioning. The process has some similarities to a necrophile heating up the inamorata with which he has just eloped from the local mortuary.

EXPLOITING PEOPLE'S FEARS

The latest stand-up UK election debate (sans Cameron and Clegg)

by Colin Liddell

While stand-up comedians try to "slay" the audience, stand-up politicians have a different target, namely their opponents. "Stand-up politicians," by the way, are just normal politicians coached and brought into the TV studios to participate in stand up debates against their opponents. 

The dream is to achieve a knock-out blow that will be replayed over-and-over in subsequent days, by looking one's opponent in the eyes, pausing, then, when everybody is listening, dropping a bombshell on him or her; like Lloyd Bentsen's famous "You're no Jack Kennedy" line, delivered in the 1988 Vice-Presidential debate to a hapless Dan Quayle, who had been nurturing sub-Kennedyesque posturings for some time.

That moment defined Quayle's career until he had a spot of trouble with his spelling a few years later. It is also the only reason that anybody ever remembers Bentsen, who was clearly no Jack Kennedy himself.